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First World War code talkers

Deseronto Archives Photo
Aerial photograph of Curtiss JN-4 aircraft number C126, taken over open fields with some stretches of water from another aircraft, whose wing is visible. The aircraft were from Camp Mohawk, one of the World War I Royal Flying Corps pilot training camps near Deseronto, Ontario.

A Peterborough-based historian and author says that, when it comes to first making use of First Nations languages as an unbreakable code in the First World War, bragging rights for the idea firmly belongs in Canadian hands.

“The First Nations men had worked out amongst themselves a series of codes,” explained Gord Young, a member of the Lakefield Heritage Research group.

Those codes would be relayed by First Nations pilots using their Indigenous language — whether it be Mohawk, Ojibwe or Cree — to a partner on the ground to relay enemy troop movements and artillery placements.

“They would have that list drilled into their heads and whoever was flying... would be saying it in Mohawk or Ojibwe or Huron or Oneida,” said Young.

While Young was uncertain on the exact code words used he provided some possible examples — such as tanks being called turtles and machine gun emplacements referred to as 'talking sticks'.

This was in 1917, before the U.S. began to leverage Cherokee and Choctaw servicemen as code talkers.

“We were way ahead of the Americans in using First Nations people, way ahead,” said Young.

Young said First Nations members training at Camp Mohawk — a First World War training airfield located on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Deseronto —were encouraged to converse in their Indigenous language and to use it when performing observation duties so that German forces would be unable to understand any intercepted communications.

“There actual training was no different... except they were now using their First Nations language to indicate what they were seeing.

“That's what differentiates Deseronto from Base Borden and Beamsville, is that the boys in those aircraft were 90 per cent Mohawk, or Alderville, or Hiawatha or Curve Lake boys.”

Young concedes that finding any documented information on artillery spotting with First Nations pilots a 100 years after the fact is not only difficult, but potentially impossible

For Young, much of this information came to him through his great uncle, Allen C. McLean — who was a pilot in the First World War — as well as from conversations with other First World War veterans.

“They're all long gone now unfortunately,” he said.

Young said the use of First Nations code talkers was a well kept secret.

“That was a top secret. Yes, they knew there were First Nations men flying out of Deseronto... but there was only maybe four or five men that were ever told they were actually talking with each other from ground to airplane and back again.”

Young said it's a piece of Canada's history that deserves to be told.

“It's something that I think needs to be celebrated. Especially for our First Nations people, they really contributed to the war.”